


the adjacent flat

by vargs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Murder, Non-Graphic Violence, child psychopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:30:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vargs/pseuds/vargs
Summary: Go away, Will thinks, mouths it under his breath.I can't help you, I'm sorry.The knock comes again, patient. Not even a sign of panic.There is something unsettling about the boy from next door.—(Léon: The ProfessionalAU)





	the adjacent flat

The family next door had borne only passing notice when he'd moved into the adjacent flat in between jobs, but for Will, there is never any helping the fact that he always ends up knowing far too much from just a glance. His particular gift serves him well. Too well. Not even walls and language barriers can keep the knowledge at bay.

From the barebones exchange of nods and courtesies he'd shared with the man in passing, Will knew that they came from old money, but were unable to access it (perhaps because of the war) hence their modest temporary accommodations in this building. The lady Will had never formally met; she was the man's Japanese wife who seldom set foot outside the door. Through the walls, Will could sometimes hear her speak, hear her sing, hear her play music from another era. He thought he saw tragedy in her, but had never looked long enough to get lost in her story. There are already too many stories Will has absorbed over the years. He did not want hers added to the mix.

And their boy, adopted or otherwise—Will does not care for children. They expect too little or they expect too much. The ones he has encountered in his line of work have all been too broken and too painful to look at. But their boy from next door watches Will when he leaves for errands and watches him when he returns and he is watching him now through the peephole as Will looks out.

They're dead, all dead. The front door of their flat has been torn off its hinges and Will had sat quietly in his kitchen while it happened, the lights turned off and one of his guns placed on the table next to the bag of groceries he hasn't yet put away, listening to the screaming and the commotion and the gunshots and then the silence that came after. Not his business, not his fault; but then came the polite knock on his door.

Will has his gun out. He has it aimed at the door at chest height and the boy stares back, waiting with his arm raised to knock again. There is also a bag of groceries occupying his other hand. Will can imagine how events came to play out: the boy sent out to fetch food, the couple left alone in the flat, the men coming around and breaking down the door. They are still there; he can hear them rifling through the rooms, upturning furniture, and pulling out drawers.

_Go away_ , Will thinks, mouths it under his breath. _I can't help you, I'm sorry_.

The knock comes again, patient. Not even a sign of panic.

There is something unsettling about the boy from next door. Will recognizes privilege and he recognizes tragedy. He also recognizes a broken, traumatized soul because their stories are fighting to get out of the empty shells they’ve left to pass as people. But he recognizes none of these things in this boy, despite all the evidence suggesting that the family must have fled from a war zone and sacrificed many things just to seek refuge in this hovel of a building. There is just a blank veneer and underneath—a glimpse down a dark hole, occupied by something like rage but nowhere near messy enough, intense and focused and intelligent. Biding its time, Will thinks, something is coming. There is something percolating underneath that skin.

The light from the open doorway of the flat next door is suddenly obscured by a man stepping out into the hallway. A thug, a crooked officer, or just another opportunist taking advantage of the political squalor. Will can't be sure and doesn't care to look harder, because the man spots the boy at the end of the hall at Will's door and turns to call for one of his mates inside. He has a gun in his hand. 

Will knows what is going to happen. He should let it be. Better to leave fell things to their own fates.

The boy waits two seconds and knocks again. His mouth opens and his lips form words that Will does not know, but the meaning is clear. 

_Please_.

By the time the man starts down the hall, Will's door is unlocked. He opens it only just wide enough to let the boy slip inside, then presses it silently closed again, sliding the chain on and pressing his ear to the door.

Footsteps come closer. Will takes a step back behind the door jamb for cover, aims his gun at the peephole, and waits for a shadow to block out the light from the hallway. 

It never comes. There's a muffled exclamation from farther away, a gruff response from the man at the door, and the footsteps retreat. Will waits where he is for another ten minutes until the noises from next door trample out and down the stairs. To be safe, he strides to the window and watches the men leave the building and get in their cars. The entire time, there is only silence from his apartment behind him.

Only when he is sure the threat is gone does Will lower his weapon and turn to appraise the problem he has invited into his home.

The boy sets his bag of groceries down next to Will's on the table and looks placidly back. He says something that Will can't understand, but assumes is some expression of gratitude. 

Will doesn't care. In truth, he's rather uncomfortable and angry with himself. He can't afford to deal with this. He's due to be assigned to another location within the month and charity cases always get clingy. In all likelihood, he will have to move to a different safe house for the rest of his stay here because of this.

"You have to go," Will tells the boy, pointing first to the boy, then to the door to make his meaning clear. "I'm sorry." He maneuvers around the boy to his weapons case, replacing his disarmed gun to its rightful place. He will need to pack and be ready to leave everything behind at a moment's notice. 

The boy simply stands where he is. He speaks again in his own language, points to the door as well.

"No," he says, perhaps the only word he knows in English that he can use to articulate his sentiment. 

Before Will can muster up the urge to throw him out immediately, the boy continues on, this time in what Will recognizes as Russian, but he cannot understand more than a few scattered words and phrases. Will shakes his head, frustrated already. The boy pauses and starts again, this time in tentative French. Will's French is passable, if not from France. There should be some overlap that they can use to communicate. He cuts into the boy's speech and catches an emotion he recognizes as annoyance flitting across the boy's face before it smooths back into blankness. Like a mask. Will takes care not to make eye contact.

"You have to go. I can't help you," Will explains slowly in rusty Creole French and whatever crumbs of knowledge he remembers from high school French lessons that he hopes the boy can at least pick up pieces of. "You bring trouble for me."

"I have nowhere to go," the boy says, barely accented French learned from a textbook. A student who had received a classical education, a focus on language. Will recalls that the family had exuded a feel of old wealth. The boy doesn't speak with the inflections of a child. "My aunt and uncle—" he gestures to the door again, meaning the hallway, meaning the carnage next door, "—my only relatives. I have no one else."

"I can't help you," Will reiterates gruffly, already feeling the effects of his gift working against him. There is almost no indication from outward appearances, but Will sees orphan, sees childhood torn apart by war, but that doesn’t seem to be why he has a living abyss for a soul— 

"I have money. I can hire you," says the boy, eyes gleaming a curious red in the dim lighting. He darts a look toward Will's case on the chair—his assortment of weapons, rifles, scopes, extra magazines, smaller handguns, hidden underneath the lid—then to Will’s hand still on the replaced gun, and then back up at him. "You hunt people."

Will takes a staggered breath and looks away. Maybe he’s just a gun nut. Maybe he’s militia. Maybe he’s just another man afraid for his life and wanting some insurance in these uncertain days. There should be no way the boy can know what Will does for a living with any certainty, but he does. Some ghastly feeling shivers its way through Will and leaves the hair on the back of his neck on end.

"Or I can pay for a weapon," the boy continues. "You need not be bothered then." 

Absolutely not. Not just because the boy looks all of 12-years-old.

"You can't— No, that's not an op—," Will runs a hand down his face and across his jaw. He tries again, another direction this time. "What's your name?"

It's a moment before the boy answers.

"Hannibal."

Unusual name. Will takes a breath and when he lets it out, abruptly begins to busy himself with finally putting away his groceries. He deliberates. The boy, Hannibal, steps out of his way and waits patiently until Will finishes putting everything away before continuing on as if five minutes had not just passed by in silence.

"Will you not give me yours?"

Will grimaces. He tells himself he's making the right decision. "You can stay here tonight," he says instead of replying. "I will take you out and drop you off somewhere safe tomorrow." He stops himself just short of offering unwarranted advice to run before those men realize they'd left one alive. 

There is a measured quality in Hannibal's silence. Will uses the time to check that all his guns are disarmed and in their rightful places, closing his case, and locking it. He shoves the entire thing under the table. 

"I will stay here tonight," Hannibal agrees, and Will hears the implicit lack of agreement to everything else. When he straightens up to remind the boy that though he’s alive out of the goodness of Will’s heart, Will has no problems leaving him to the dogs if he doesn’t behave, Hannibal has crossed to the front door and is unlatching the chain.

"Wait, where—?" Will is startled into asking.

"I need to salvage my things before the police arrive," Hannibal explains, matter-of-fact. "I also wish to say goodbye."

With that, he pulls the door open and steps through, closing it behind him. 

Will is left alone to stare in silence. He wonders briefly how Hannibal can trust that Will's door will stay unlocked until his return. He listens as light footsteps make their way down the hall, pause for a brief second, and turn into the apartment next door. Perhaps Will should have stopped the boy, at least tried to spare him the trauma of seeing the scene.

Something tells him that would have been unnecessary. Something also tells him that come tomorrow, things will no longer be going Will's way. 

Will sits in his kitchen, cloaked by a vague sense of disturbance, until Hannibal comes back with a suitcase in tow.

**Author's Note:**

> originally a ficlet from Tumblr, now edited a bit for AO3. this was from a while back (4/14/2017).
> 
> thought about continuing it, but it never went anywhere. just archiving it here.


End file.
